Blog

I love when a complex idea results in a really simple, familiar concept. I mean; I don't love it. It's like when you're writing this awesome new piece but then you boil it down and it's just a familiar plot you've known you're whole life. It would be great to make something new. It would be great to figure out something unpredictable, something without ten pages of notes on TV Tropes. But it's also comforting, and in this particular case, supports the notion of form following content. (It actually doesn't. It just reminds me of that. I love anything resembling form following content. I should look at that more.)

I have seen You've Got Mail (1998) about five hundred times. I grew up on it, much as I grew up on numerous romantic comedies that don't have sex scenes. Since it was approved by my mother, my sisters and I watched it over and over again. We watched Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) fight to keep her little bookshop open on the Upper West Side. We watched Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) threaten her livelihood with his Barnes & Noble stand-in, Fox Books. We watched them flirt online in a pre-aughts-unsullied Internet chat room without knowing each other's identity, and reveled in Kathleen's minor victories when she unwittingly used Joe's advice against him. There's never a question that they'll end up together, but seeing them overcome the unfortunate career situation is really enjoyable.

However, it's a wordy film. There is a lot of talking in "You've Got Mail". A lot of musing, a lot of literati references. There were a lot of scenes I tuned out of when I was younger. Watching it now, it's fun that I can understand the conversations that used to mean nothing to me. I appreciate the subtleties. (Especially Parker Posey. She's a gem.) Here, to get this out of my freaking system, is my favorite part of the movie that I discovered when I got big.

Kathleen's boyfriend, Frank (Greg Kinnear), is a journalist. He frequently and comically tortures himself with questions about time and things that have become obsolete. (His support for Kathleen's bookstore miiiiiiiight have been a clue that it wasn't going to survive.) In a scene where he talks over her, trying to support her, we learn Kathleen's greatest fear:

"I'm wondering about my work," Kathleen says. "I'm just ... what is it that I do, exactly? All I really do is run a children's bookstore--" At which point Frank delivers his funny line about her being a lone reed.

​I always overlooked that line. The Lone Reed line overshadows it. But it's key to understanding Kathleen's struggles in the story. Hers is an understandable fear. Most people will look around at their careers or their jobs and wonder the same thing. Whether you enjoy your work like Kathleen or are doing it for the paycheck, we can't avoid taking stock of what we put our time and effort into. In this situation, Kathleen is being forced to examine her bookstore from the point of view of the conglomerate pushing her out. She inherited the store from her mother and so it has emotional significance for her, but if the going gets tough, is her work important enough for her to fight for it?

Later, Kathleen meets Joe at an industry party. The first time they met in her store, he kept his last name from her. When she figures out that he's part of Fox Books, she goes on a rampage, accusing him of spying on the competition. Joe knows he did her wrong. However, he's not one to admit that. He's about the bottom line and he wants his new venture to succeed. So instead of engaging in Kathleen's emotion, he remains passive and infuriatingly calm. But that comment about him trying to spy on her gets him enough to poke her back.

He says to her: "I have in my possession the super-duper secret printout of the sales figures of a bookstore so inconsequential yet full of its own virtue that I was immediately compelled to rush over there for fear that it's gonna put me out of business."

Joe was most likely trying to save face and shut her up: You think you're a threat? Nice try, lady. You're not. You're inconsequential. That word. It's devastating! Kathleen's deepest fear is that she's fighting for a cause that isn't worthy, that she herself is unworthy (which is probably why she comes off as the opposite, as virtuous). It's no accident that Joe knows exactly what to say to her. Indeed, it works, she's speechless, all she can do is point at him with a kitchen knife. And he knows it. He knows he cut her to the quick, as evidenced in his chat room confession later on. Here comes Mr. Nasty.

But: The feeling is mutual. Kathleen, while not as quick-witted as Joe in the moment, can be equally destructive. In the scene in the coffee shop when she's waiting to meet her Chat Room Prince Charming, Joe shows up and figures out that they've been chatting with each other all along. He doesn't reveal this information, however, and storms in without a plan or fully comprehending the situation. He doesn't understand how it's possible for two people to hate each other and be in love at the same time.

So he sits down and proceeds to torture Kathleen, making fun of the signals they had planned for identifying each other, teasing her that her man is never going to show up. He's lording it over her that she's probably at that very moment in love with him. But the fact of the matter is that he's in the same boat, he's just in denial. For now.

Finally, provoked beyond belief, Kathleen snaps at him.

She says: "You've deluded yourself into thinking that you're some sort of benefactor bringing books to the masses. But no one will ever remember you, Joe Fox ... You are nothing but a suit."

​It's that line about no one remembering him that wipes the smug smile off Joe's face. Kathleen, just about in tears, is busy in the throes of being able to speak her mind finally, but even that satisfaction is quickly thwarted when she realizes how much she hurt Joe's feelings. Turns out he has the same fears that she does. That no matter how many books he brings people, that no matter how much money he makes, that's not what matters.

It's such a terrible feeling, to speak your mind when you wish it - as Joe had previously warned Kathleen during one of their Internet chats. Kathleen is devastated once again, but it's because of her own actions this time. She can't even blame Joe for it, other than the fact that he provoked her.

Joe realizes that he is in love with her and begins a journey to make amends and ingratiate himself to her. He is able to accomplish this easily - because of his subterfuge as her chat room confidant, yes, but it's more than that. Kathleen and Joe see each other. It's an extraordinary power, to see someone. To understand why they do things and what they strive for. As enemies, they exploited this power to harm each other. As lovers, Joe uses that ability to woo Kathleen instead. He comes over to Kathleen's apartment when she's sick and realizes that he's still bringing out the worst in her. He stops her from insulting him in order to help her avoid that horrible feeling again.

It's an example of there being a fine line between love and hate. Both require deep understanding of the other person and that understanding can be both used and abused. In this case, the whole story supports the fact that these two people are meant to be together - as a good rom-com should - right down to the speech and motivation of the two main characters. (Is there a form/content argument in there? I could have sworn there was ...)

Confession time: I watched the Dirty Dancing remake and I liked it. Specifically, I liked the screenplay. I could have done without the wooden acting; the "spontaneous" singing from everyone, all the time; the unnecessary melodrama in the delivery of certain lines. However, it was inspiring to see not-size-zero Abigail Breslin get the same treatment that Jennifer Grey did. And though the guy who plays Johnny (Colt Prattes) has super dead eyes most of the time, being able to act through dancing is not an insignificant talent – and both he and Breslin are really good at that.

But back to the screenplay: Written by Jessica Sharzer, this version of Dirty Dancing doesn't do what so many remakes before it have done – namely, a literal beat-for-beat recreation of the source material. (See: Beauty and the Beast.) Originally written by Eleanor Bergstein, Sharzer rewrote the movie with added depth. Her screenplay explores story lines hinted at in the original: Baby's mother (Debra Messing) is a frustrated housewife contemplating divorce. Kellerman's son (Trevor Einhorn) tries to impress Baby with knowledge of The Feminine Mystique. Robbie (Shane Harper) really is a dirtbag, like, salt in the wound uber-dirtbag. (But yeah – didn't really find it necessary for Baby's sister (Sarah Hyland) to become a Hairspray-style checkerboard chick who sings Bob Dylan, or for Johnny to be a dyslexic ex-con.)

Sharzer's working with the material means that she recognized and respected the audience's familiarity with the original movie. Obviously the people watching her remake would know the 1987 version by heart, and any lines lifted directly from it would feel disassociated and hollow. It's like a cover of a classic rock song where the singer knows her voice isn't as good, but by looking for new meaning in the piece she can bring something else to the table.

​Watching the 2017 Dirty Dancing feels like a commentary on the original 1987 Dirty Dancing. Adaptation is a tricky process, and I love when it's done in a new and original way.

I felt the same watching Syfy's television show, The Magicians (2015-present). Now two seasons in, it's an adaptation of the book series by Lev Grossman. Take some young angsty millennials in modern times and have them learn that magic exists, along with their versions of Narnia and Hogwarts -- Fillory and Brakebills, respectively. The antagonist is a sadistic creature called The Beast. Another character informs students that she's been using time warps to figure out what the students can do to finally defeat The Beast in the present. In all honesty, I stopped reading the series after the first book, but my friend liked it so much that I got the sequel for us both to read. The sequel is when protagonist Quentin goes to Fillory and boy, does it pick up speed there. It's also where Quentin's best friend from childhood, Julia, gets her story told. The third book was even better, the best in my opinion.

While Quentin is often perceived as depressive and whiny - getting by mostly on his intellect and willingness to try anything - Julia doesn't get that luxury. In the books, she is rejected from Brakebills. The memory wipe of her entrance exam doesn't work, though, so she picks herself up and figures out how to become a hedge witch instead, learning magic outside of the clean and safe academia. Her story is tragic and it details the sacrifices she has to make to get what Quentin is handed on a silver platter.

When the Syfy series began, it was clear from the pilot that we weren't going to have to wait around for Fillory like we did in the books. Neither, as it turned out, did we have to wait for Julia (Stella Maeve). Quentin (Jason Ralph) gets in to Brakebills as he does in the books, and Julia's story parallels his from there. The series, however, works the material even further: Julia's rejection from Brakebills is not arbitrary in the series. Her rejection isn't because she's not smart enough or talented enough, because clearly she is. She proves herself more resilient and powerful than many of the successful students. Instead, in all of the previous time warps used to calculate The Beast (Charles Mesure), she was a student at Brakebills. She was happy and learning and not abused. The difference in the present time warp was that she was rejected and thus had to go on her journey to learn her magic on the streets, bargain for it, work for it, and therefore be able to defeat him this time around. Her pain is given more meaning in this version of events.

Instead of repeating the material over, Syfy's series - the creation of which Grossman is extremely involved in, by the way - works the material in a new way to create a new experience. It's building on the books and the story they tell. Remakes don't have to be nostalgic revisits of old stories. In both the Dirty Dancing remake and The Magicians, I felt that through the adaptation process the writers were able to enrich the original story with a commentary.